


where the sky meets the sea

by vifetoile



Series: a never-ending chain [3]
Category: Moana (2016), Pocahontas (1995)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Gen, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 11:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10898919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vifetoile/pseuds/vifetoile
Summary: Someone finally comes to sweep Maui off of that miserable little island... it's not the person he expected.





	where the sky meets the sea

 

Maui had never been good at waiting.

He hadn’t gotten any better at waiting over the last – however many years. Which had been nothing but waiting, stuck on a miserable pile of rocks that only the most charitable soul could call an “island.”

He’d gotten better at carving, certainly. Better at making notches on the rocks, to tally the days. As for making necklaces and bracelets out of rotting seaweed, driftwood, and any interesting looking flotsam that came his way - you betcha! Maui was your man.

Well, your demigod.

But he  _ still  _ didn’t like waiting, and he was sure as sunlight sick of the little island where she’d stranded him.

_ She _ . That long-haired, oh-so-graceful Airbender who’d had the temerity to stick  _ him  _ on a rock in the middle of the southern sea, just because he’d been “messing with the Balance” and because she was the  _ Avatar _ and she  _ could. _

Maui could go on about this. About the injustice of it all. About how the next time he saw Avatar Pocahontas, he was going to give her - better believe it! - a piece of his mind. Not a particularly friendly piece, either. He might even call her some nasty names, if she came by on the wrong day.

Because make no mistake, she was coming by any day now. Any day. Nobody just  _ deposits  _ handsome demigods on miserable islands by themselves and  _ leaves them there _ , without coming back, ever, right? Not even Avatars get to do that.

Nobody deserves that.

Not even those who steal from other spirits.

… Right?

#

Maui had hobbies aside from rock-carving and jewelry-making. He practiced sailing, a lot, in his mind. Just to keep himself sharp. Sooner or later, a boat would wash up on his island – or the materials to make one, at least. 

And maybe this boat would come with an inconvenient sailor attached, so what? In case  _ that  _ happened, Maui practiced a song-and-dance routine (some days it was more literal than others) to charm and entice that schmuck into the island’s cave, so that Maui could take the boat and sail away in peace.

But he still had too much spare time.

On his good days, Maui kept himself company by remembering all of Avatar Pocahontas’ flaws. Her nobler-than-thou attitude. Her association with that wretched raccoon. Her habit of falling in love too easily. Her disturbing fondness for jumping off of very high surfaces, using only the subtlest Airbending to land without breaking all of her bones.

_ Spirits _ , that last one was annoying.

On his bad days, Maui remembered how afraid he was every time she jumped off of those very high surfaces. How he laughed when she blushed over a new paramour. How pleased he was whenever he made her smile.

On his bad days, Maui remembered that Pocahontas had been his friend.

#

Whenever a storm hit, Maui stood out in on the western end of the island, and enjoyed it to the hilt. The wind and rain couldn’t hurt him – the lightning could  _ try _ , but he was made of stern stuff – and the excitement and  _ fwoosh  _ and  _ splash  _ made a great break from the monotony.

But for some reason, on this night of all nights, Maui heard Pocahontas’ voice in the wind.

“ _ Te Fiti is the guardian spirit of all the Southern Seas! You stole her heart – for what? For a festival? For a statue? For one more damned lei? What did you think would happen to the people of her seas? _ ”

When the lightning flashed, he remembered how Pocahontas’ eyes had glowed white, and how she had picked him up like he weighed nothing and flown him across the ocean –

“ _ Maui! Look at Te Fiti’s island! Look at where the path of your ego has brought us! _ ”

\-- and then she’d brought him  _ here _ , and she’d flown away on her glider, and never once looked back.

Maui wiped the rain out of his eyes, and went into his cave, to wait out the storm.

#

The storm had passed, the sun was high in the sky, and someone was yelling at the ocean.

That was the first thing Maui noticed - a voice other than his own.

The second thing Maui noticed was a boat. A canoe, with a blue sail decorated with a spiral. Beside the boat, there was –

_ Her _ . The Avatar. Pocahontas, in the flesh, returned.

Relief flooded him. “ _ There  _ you are!” Maui yelled. The Avatar turned to him. “Aha, you really had me going there for a while,” Maui waved a finger at her, “but I knew you’d come back for me eventually. I’ve had a lot of time to think, and let me tell  _ you -- _ ”

“Come back for you?” Pocahontas interrupted. She gathered herself, and pointed her oar at him. “Listen to me, Maui. I am –“

“I know who you are. But…” he took a closer look at her. “You’ve  _ shrunk _ .” Huh. Oh, yeah – sometimes humans shrank when they got older. Who’d ever imagine he’d be able to look down on lanky Pocahontas herself?

“What do you mean? No, don’t answer that,” she said. She tucked her hair behind her ear – he remembered that gesture very well – and pointed her oar again. “I am –“

“Why are you dressed like that?” he asked.

“Dressed like what?”

“In blue,” he said. He looked at her clothes, and at her face. There were the features he remembered – wide forehead, long hair, piercing eyes – but yellow and orange were the colors of the Air Nomads, not blue and white. “Or is my color vision going?” he asked. “And where are your arrows?”

“MAUI!” she exclaimed, and pointed her oar one more time. “I am  _ Moana _ , of the Southern Water Tribe, and you will board my boat, sail across the Southern Seas, and restore the heart of Te Fiti! Do you understand?”

“Moana?” He repeated. “No, no. Your name is Pocahontas. Po-ca-hon-tas,” he repeated. She may have hit her head in the storm, who knew? Best to be understanding.

“I’m not in the mood to play games.”

“I figured as much. Listen, you think I wouldn’t recognize you?”

“Recognize you? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

Pshaw. Like he couldn’t sense her  _ mana  _ with his eyes closed. Only one being had that combination of Spirit-with-a-capital-S and human, and that was the Avatar. He would have been able to sense her a mile away, if it weren’t for that storm.

Speaking of which…

“Oh, and thanks for that storm, by the way. Really impressive Airbending there.” A compliment never hurt, he remembered.

That got her off-guard, for some reason. “I’m a Waterbender,” she said.

“Of course you are. And that was some great Waterbending, too. Very clever, covering your arrival like that.”

Now she was getting impatient. “You will board my boat – “ she indicated the boat with a jut of her chin, “sail across the Southern Seas – and restore the heart of Te Fiti.”

“Not without my hook, Pocahontas.” His voice was flat. Final. Undeniable. “You know me better than that.”

“Pocahontas is dead.”

“What?”

“Pocahontas. The Avatar died seventeen years ago.”

“ _ What _ ?” Seventeen years? Dead? It couldn’t possibly be that long – how could Pocahontas be dead? Then who was this? “What’d she die of?” This had to be a trick. A ruse. They wouldn’t catch Maui in it!

“She died of old age, in the Foggy Swamp,” the girl said. “She was wise and beloved. So don’t mock her by calling me by her name.”

“Died of  _ old age _ ? How long have I been on this island?” Maui exclaimed.

“Long enough for the entire Southern Sea to be poisoned by the darkness that started when  _ you  _ stole the heart of Te Fiti!” The girl – what had she said her name was? – thudded her oar into the sand. “That’s why I am here.”

Realization hit Maui as surely as if she’d whacked him with her oar. “Oh.  _ Oh _ . And how old are you?”

“Sixteen?”

“Thank you.” It was so hard to tell the ages of humans. And humans – at least those in the Water Tribe – tended to count the first year of life as zero.

No  _ wonder  _ he’d recognized her.

“What did you say your name was, again?”

“Moana. And you will board my boat, sail across the Southern Seas, and restore the heart of – “

“Yeah, yeah, I got that. Listen. Do you know you’re the – you know what, never mind.”

She hadn’t known she was an Airbender. She didn’t know she was the Avatar.

And if she  _ was  _ the Avatar, then duty compelled her to – well, to do all sorts of things, but chiefly to travel to the Earth Kingdom and learn Earthbending. Restoring Maui’s hook to him, where it belonged, would probably be way down on that list. Besides, the young lady – who was  _ not  _ Pocahontas, even if they had a more-than-vague resemblance – had an agenda of her own. It involved getting him off his island, so he was willing to play along.

Pocahontas? Dead?

He’d never even considered that… that she might just up and die on him.

In the end, Maui went along quietly with Moana. No song and dance, nothing. And he planned to stick around, anyway – maybe not too long, because strange things happened around Avatars. Maui would know. 

He’d stick around long enough to get his hook back, definitely.  _ Maybe  _ until they reached civilization. And maybe, if he was patient and kept watch when strange things began to happen… he might be able to say goodbye to his friend.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants to write more in this AU, please feel free! Just give me credit and let me know. :-)


End file.
